


Don't Need a Dozen Roses

by coraxes



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, Mass Effect 2, friends (??) with benefits, grown ass adults with crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7232788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard started sleeping with Aria T'Loak on accident.  It snowballed from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Need a Dozen Roses

**Author's Note:**

> this is a cleaned up/expanded version of something i put on tumblr ages ago. this bit tells the story of shepard and aria's relationship in me2, the second/final chapter will be their relationship in me3.
> 
> title from "get on your knees" by nicki minaj/ariana grande, because....yeah.

Shepard started sleeping with Aria T'loak on accident.

 

The moment Aria had told her the one rule of Omega, she had known there would be trouble. Shepard had a thing for leather, general no-fucks-given attitudes, bluntness, and criminals. Still, she'd figured the tension would just--stay tension. Shepard had a job to do, and Aria seemed about as cuddly as a biotic varren.

 

Then Aria told her, with a satisfied curve to her mouth, "You should find a nice young man to keep you warm."

 

Garrus and Tali were in Omega's markets, leaving Shepard mostly alone. She told herself, when she cocked her hip and lowered her voice, that she was only calling Aria's bluff.

 

"I'm not in the mood for anyone _nice_."

 

Aria smirked. "Too bad, then," was all she said, and waved her hand in what was clearly a dismissal. Shepard left, stung but not taking it too personally; and then her visor notified her of a message, scarcely before she'd gotten down Afterlife's stairs. It was an address.

 

Two hours later, Shepard staggered back to the dock. Her armor pressed against fresh bruises, and she was more relaxed than she'd been in months. Tali and Garrus were radiating judgement.

 

It was an accident, Shepard told herself. "It won't happen again," Shepard told them.

 

And she'd meant it. Shepard had spent her formative years among criminals, had been one herself.  If she and Aria kept this up, it was only a matter of times before someone tried to use them against each other.  Or Shepard would have to do something Aria didn’t like, or vice versa, and it’d end in a fight that blew up half of Omega.  Easier to just end it after one night.

 

Then a chat message popped onto her visor in the middle of firefight.

_Busy?_

 

Of course she was, so it wasn't until sometime later that she got to reply, _no._

 

Aria didn't chat her back until the middle of the ship's night cycle, when Shepard was trying and failing to sleep.

_what are you wearing?_

_are you joking_

_if you're not interested..._

_tank top and boxers_

 

She slept surprisingly well, afterwards.

 

The next time they stopped on Omega was for Morinth, and afterwards Shepard felt like someone had poured sand in her armor.  Morinth’s edgy hipster bullshit wasn’t her kind of thing at all, but the whole time they were talking, she could _feel_ asari pheromones, biotics, what the fuck ever working on her.  She’d been able to resist, but it still freaked her the hell out. 

 

So—she sent Samara back to the ship, and then she went to Afterlife.

 

Aria was talking to another asari as Shepard approached; she nodded at Shepard and then continued with her conversation.  Shepard sat on the couch and played a game on her omnitool while Aria worked out some business that involved a lot of codenames, and finally the asari left.

 

“You survived the Ardat-Yakshi,” said Aria once they were alone, for a certain value of it.  “Good.”

 

“You didn’t think I would?” Shepard asked, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees. 

 

“I know you’ve got a weakness for asari.”  Aria was smirking again.  It should not have been as attractive as it was.  Smirking was _Shepard’s_ thing, dammit.

 

“Just one,” said Shepard.  “You wanna get out of here?”

 

Aria tilted her head, considered.  “I’ve got time.”

 

The address they went to this time was a little farther from Afterlife and a little more personal.  The last place looked like someone had slapped a bed in the middle of a warehouse.  This one didn’t have any pictures or art or knickknacks, nothing to make it look like a real home, but there were touches of personality—a blanket at the end of the bed that looked quarian, a half-empty bottle of Noverian rum on a cabinet, light tinged closer to purple than the red of the rest of the station.

 

“She scared you, didn’t she,” said Aria as soon as the door locked.  She didn’t move from beside it, didn’t touch Shepard, just looked at her.

 

Shepard blinked.  She’d been expecting more of last time—coy remarks moving to overt come-ons moving to Aria pinning her to the bed with biotics.  “I don’t like people messing with my head like that,” she said flatly. 

 

Aria nodded.  “I get that.  First time an Ardat-Yakshi tried to seduce me, I gutted her.  I hope this one’s end was just as satisfying.”

 

From the way she said _satisfying,_ Shepard wondered if she actually got off on killing whichever unfortunate Ardat-Yakshi had tried to score there.  It was scary, and also a little bit hot. 

 

“I guess that’s up to you,” said Shepard, grinning at her.  Aria chuckled and reached for the catches of Shepard’s armor.

 

This time was different than the last.  Aria had been paying attention, for one thing—she went right for the spots that had Shepard biting back moans, and Shepard had learned how to get her to act like less of an ice queen.  Last time, too, it had all been Aria in charge.  Shepard hadn’t minded it then, but she needed to be in control after everything with Morinth, and Aria went with that more willingly than Shepard expected.

 

Still, though, there was no embracing eternity or what the hell ever.  Like last time, Aria didn’t even try, and Shepard was oddly grateful that she didn’t.

 

After the third go-round, they just lay sprawled on opposite sides of the bed.  According to the digital clock nearby, it had been a hell of a long time since Shepard’s crew would have started wondering where she was. 

 

Shepard sighed and stared up at the ceiling.  “I’ve got to go.”

 

Aria nodded, and it was oddly disappointing.  “I’ll keep in touch,” she said.  The dark purple of her makeup had come off her top lip and chin sometime in the last few hours; Shepard could see a streak of it on her own inner thigh. 

 

 _What did you expect?  That she’d beg you to spend the night?_ “I’ll be around,” Shepard said, and slid out of bed to collect her armor. 

 

\--

 

A few days later, she found Garrus in the battery.  He was fiddling with his calibrations as always, but when Shepard asked if he had a moment then he didn’t shoo her away.  She sat on the stack of crates by the wall, putting some distance between them. 

 

“You took out a lot of crooks on Omega,” she said slowly, trying to figure the best way to phrase her question.

 

“Glad you noticed,” said Garrus, and tapped his scarred mandible.  “I guess the army of mercs gave me away.”

 

“But you didn’t go after Aria.”  If he had, one of them one be dead by now.  Probably Garrus, but she wouldn’t put money on it.  “Why not?”

 

 _Now_ she had his full attention. “I might have, if I’d gotten enough power.  As it was…I didn’t.”  His mandibles flared out, then back, almost absentminded.  “Besides, she was good to have around.  Didn’t usually kill people just for being incompetent or in her way, stopped anything that would have damaged Omega as a whole, tried to limit civilian casualties…there are worse people to have in charge of Omega.  Like the Patriarch.”

 

Shepard tried, very hard, not to let herself visibly relax.  It matched her own judgement of Aria, and she trusted Garrus to be objective about this more than she trusted herself at this point.  “Thanks,” she said, rolling to her feet.  “That’s all I wanted to know.”

 

On her way out the door, Garrus stopped her again.  “Shepard—”

 

She turned, and saw him levelling a look she rarely saw from him—all traces of joking and levity gone.

 

“Just because she isn’t as bad as she could be doesn’t mean she’s a good person.  Just…be careful.”

 

Shepard took a deep breath.  “You know me, Garrus; I’m always careful.”

 

“Right,” said Garrus dryly.  “You ever get Chakwas to take a look at the wrist you sprained tackling a merc yesterday, Shepard?”

 

She raised the hand with the aforementioned sprained wrist and very deliberately flipped him off.

 

“So that’s a no, then,” said Garrus.  His face hadn’t changed, but Shepard hoped he’d picked up that gesture working with C-sec or something.  It was a lot less satisfying to flip him off if he didn’t know about it.

 

\--

 

They didn’t go to Omega for a few more weeks—there was too much to do, missing pieces of people’s lives to track down and Collectors to hunt.

 

Aria…kept in touch.  It wasn’t _always_ chat sex, surprisingly.  Shepard didn’t want to cross any lines that they hadn’t crossed already, but Aria started to open up, just a little.  They started talking about their days, Shepard sending her little vids of particularly good shots set to club music, Aria bitching about incompetent mercs trying to conspire against her.

 

It felt…a little like being a lovesick teenager, looking up to one of the Reds’ leaders and hoping she’d catch her eye.  A little like slipping back into the person she used to be before she hacked herself a name and a background and enlisted.  But it was _fun,_ too—Shepard couldn’t remember the last time she had an honest-to-God _crush_ on someone.  She just wished her brain hadn’t picked a fuckin’ purple mafia boss for the honor.

 

The crew started to notice.  Tali and Garrus already knew, of course.  EDI probably did, too; Shepard _thought_ their messages had been well-encrypted, but she didn’t know the AI well enough to tell. 

 

(Liara _definitely_ knew.  They got lunch after the Shadow Broker fiasco, and—

 

“Aria T’Loak?  _Really,_ Shepard?” 

 

Shepard slurped down her noodles and shrugged in lieu of an explanation.  She didn’t have one; she just…liked her.)

 

The rest of the crew didn’t know _who_ she was talking to, but Kelly asked more than once if she was seeing someone, Mordin offered to send her condoms, even fucking _Joker_ gossiped about it.  Hell, she caught Kasumi trying to hack her omnitool.  A couple of times she considered just going on the intercom and announcing, “I’M FUCKING ARIA T’LOAK, NOW GET BACK TO WORK”.  But she had a feeling it would be a breach of professional ethics.

 

And then the collectors attacked the ship.

 

She came back from the mission to a deserted Normandy and a broken Joker, getting reassured by _EDI_ of all people, what the hell.  Shepard took Joker’s anger and fired it back at him.  She couldn’t take care of his mental state right now, not when the—the _violation_ of the attack had her on edge. 

 

They went to Omega for last minute repairs, fuel refills, and they had barely docked when Shepard knew she had to get off the ship.  If she stayed she’d be bouncing off the walls, unable to do _anything_ useful. 

 

If she left, there was a distraction.

 

She found Aria at her usual spot on the couch.  The guards had stopped looking at her mostly, but today she felt their eyes following her all the way up the stairs—maybe the set of her shoulders or the weight of her footsteps.  Shepard was _pissed_ and she wanted Omega to know it, wanted the whole galaxy to know it, wanted the collectors to know she was coming for them—

 

When Aria saw Shepard, she actually put down her datapad. 

 

“You got a minute?”

 

Aria rose to her feet, mimicking Shepard’s posture: crossed arms, raised chin.  “I might.”

 

“Good.”  Shepard grabbed Aria’s forearms, yanking her forward, and kissed her.  There was the sound of a rifle clicking in the background, but Shepard ignored it, even though this was the first time they’d so much as touched in public.  It was like kissing a statue; only Aria’s mouth moved.  She could feel the asari’s crossed arms pressing against her breastplate.  When she pulled away, Aria was studying her coolly.  “I’ve got two hours.”

 

“Then we’d better get started.”  Aria jerked away, brushed past Shepard, and before Shepard could turn smacked her armored ass. 

 

Shepard grinned despite herself and followed.

 

Afterward, between Aria’s biotics and Shepard’s Cerberus strength, the room was thoroughly trashed.  Shepard lay on the bed for a moment, the covers kicked somewhere around her ankles, and stared at the ceiling.  Her two hours were almost up, and reality settled back in—in a few minutes, she’d be going through the Omega-4 relay.  Possibly to her own death, probably to at least some of her crews’. 

 

Roughly, Aria grabbed Shepard’s shoulder, flipped her over with a little biotic aid, and pulled Shepard to her side. 

 

“Aria,” Shepard said flatly, “are you…trying to cuddle?”

 

The asari’s eyes were closed.  Her fingers carded through Shepard’s sex-mussed hair.  “You’re about to do something stupidly heroic and get yourself killed, aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah on the first, hopefully no to the second.”  The hair-stroking thing felt _weird_ —she couldn’t remember anyone doing that to her, not even her few actual relationships—but nice, and Shepard nudged up into Aria’s hand like a cat.  “We’re going through the Omega-4 relay.”

 

Aria’s hand stilled, and before she could talk herself out of it, Shepard pulled away to start picking up the scattered pieces of her armor.

 

“If you make it out alive,” said Aria, “come see me.”

 

Something tight pulled in Shepard’s chest, and she ignored it as best she could, just grabbed another piece of armor.  “Yeah,” she said, and risked a glance up.  Aria was watching her through narrowed eyes.  “Wish me luck?”

 

Aria made a huffing noise.  Then she rose abruptly from the bed and walked to a section of the wall; at a touch of her hand, a panel receded, revealing a vault.  Once she’d opened it, she pulled something out and tossed it to Shepard.  She caught it automatically.

 

“It’s a pistol,” Shepard said dumbly.  “It’s a…really old pistol.”  Not exactly a piece of junk—it would have been nice in its day, and it had been well taken care of—but compared to her carnifex? 

 

“About three hundred years old,” said Aria.  She looked almost…embarrassed?  “I shot Patriarch with it.  Punched right through his skull plates.”

 

Shepard stared at her.

 

“Good luck, Shepard.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments and criticism are <3
> 
> EDIT 9/12/2017: So, I've accepted the fact that I will never finish this story. I'm marking it complete; hopefully it stands alone alright. Sorry to those who were hoping for more. <3


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